Baskets and baskets of cucumbers plus a ceramic top hand-me-down stove meant no hot water canning of pickles this year. I read that canning on these types of stoves is not recommended. So, Mrs. Wages Refrigerator Pickles (sweet, bread and butter, kosher dill and dilly beans ) and I have made acquaintance this summer. I’ve put up about 24 or so pints that are taking up space in the refrigerator. So, with my cucumber vines in process of dying back (who knows–too many hidden large ripe ones or mildew), I made one last big harvest and decided to try an old fashioned recipe for fermented sour pickles.
I have a few stoneware crocks. Some are antique and the others are nice ones that came from Lehmans.
I decided to use the three gallon crock and this interesting recipe by Sandor Ellix Katz that I found online and just happened to have his book Wild Fermentation.
What drew me to this was the addition of grape/horseradish leaves which I just happened to have in the garden. These are supposed to keep pickles crisp. And, I had several dill heads ready to harvest. These are described as New York City style Jewish sour pickles.
Here’s the recipe:
Sour Pickles
Timeframe: 1-4 weeks
Special Equipment:
- Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket
- Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
- 1-gallon/4-liter jug filled with water, or other weight
- Cloth cover
Ingredients (for 1 gallon/4 liters):
- 3 to 4 pounds/1.5 to 2 kilograms unwaxed
- cucumbers (small to medium size)
- 3⁄8 cup (6 tablespoons)/90 milliliters sea salt
- 3 to 4 heads fresh flowering dill, or 3 to 4
- tablespoons/45 to 60 milliliters of any form of
- dill (fresh or dried leaf or seeds)
- 2 to 3 heads garlic, peeled
- 1 handful fresh grape, cherry, oak, and/or
- horseradish leaves (if available)
- 1 pinch black peppercorns
Process:
- Rinse cucumbers, taking care to not bruise them, and making sure their blossoms are removed. Scrape off any remains at the blossom end. If you’re using cucumbers that aren’t fresh off the vine that day, soak them for a couple of hours in very cold water to freshen them.
- Dissolve sea salt in ½gallon (2 liters) of water to create brine solution. Stir until salt is thoroughly dissolved.
- 3. Clean the crock, then place at the bottom of it dill, garlic, fresh grape leaves, and a pinch of black peppercorns.
- Place cucumbers in the crock.
- Pour brine over the cucumbers,place the (clean) plate over them, then weigh it down with a jug filled with water or a boiled rock. If the brine doesn’t cover the weighed-down plate, add more brine mixed at the same ratio of just under 1 tablespoon of salt to each cup of water.
- Cover the crock with a cloth to keep out dust and flies and store it in a cool place.
- Check the crock every day. Skim any mold from the surface, but don’t worry if you can’t get it all. If there’s mold, be sure to rinse the plate and weight. Taste the pickles after a few days.
- Enjoy the pickles as they continue to ferment. Continue to check the crock every day.
- Eventually, after one to four weeks (depending on the temperature), the pickles will be fully sour. Continue to enjoy them, moving them to the fridge to slow down fermentation.
Note from S.E.K.
The strength of brine varies widely in different traditions and recipe books. Brine strength is most often expressed as weight of salt as a percentage of weight of solution, though sometimes as weight of salt as a percentage of volume of solution. Since in most home kitchens we are generally dealing with volumes rather than weights, the following guideline can help readers gauge brine strength: Added to 1 quart of water, each tablespoon of sea salt (weighing about .6 ounce) adds 1.8% brine. So 2 tablespoons of salt in 1 quart of water yields a 3.6% brine, 3 tablespoons yields 5.4%, and so on. In the metric system, each 15 milliliters of salt (weighing 17 grams) added to 1 liter of water yields 1.8% brine.
Some old-time recipes call for brines with enough salt to float an egg. This translates to about a 10% salt solution. This is enough salt to preserve pickles for quite some time, but they are too salty to consume without a long desalinating soak in fresh water first. Low-salt pickles, around 3.5% brine, are “half-sours” in delicatessen lingo. This recipe is for sour, fairly salty pickles, using around 5.4% brine. Experiment with brine strength. A general rule of thumb to consider in salting your ferments: more salt to slow microorganism action in summer heat; less salt in winter when microbial action slows.
